Found our way to the KOA. Our plan was to spend three nights here; that got extended to four because of all the things we found to do, as you'll find out.
At the KOA the satellite TV saga continued. This is an old park, built in the 70s in one corner of a wheat field. It's designed to fit the campers and trailers of that time. Over the years the owner added lots of trees and shrubs and big decorative rocks with holes excavated for flowers. A pictorial history of the park says there are miles of drip lines. So, it was not designed for big rigs and all the trimmings makes it even tighter. And hard to get a satellite connection. We tried several parking positions in our assigned site -- forward and back -- but couldn't connect. The site next to us had dead branches in what we thought was the line to the satellite, instead of a leafed-out tree, so we moved to it. Same result: forward and back, no connection. Oh, well. We were able to get two fuzzy channels through the antenna and digital converter and we did get a lot of reading done.
Flash forward to Sunday. We needed to back up about 10 feet in order to dump our holding tanks. (Don't know why I didn't park within range to begin with, but I was tired of messing with it.) I'm pretty sure I had tried unsuccessfully on Thursday to get a satellite connection from about that location, but on Sunday I thought, Why not try again? Nothing. A little bit later, though, Susie turned on the dish and this time (finally!) we got a connection. I knew we'd be glad we went to church.
Back to Friday. I took an early morning walk around the park. Here's a shot of the adjoining wheat field and beyond, through the trees.
Also, came across this vehicle belonging to a tent camper:
It was called a Chew-ba-ru. The car is covered with dentures, denture molds, toothbrushes, and empty toothpaste tubes. The horns I don't understand. Here's a close-up: sunrise glow on the dentures.
I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for why this person did all this, but when we got back to camp later in the day, he or she was already gone. No doubt soon to appear at a mall near you.
We came across one of those surprise gems that add spice to travel. Gives you a smile. For 19 years a husband and wife duo, calling themselves The Rivertown Rounders, have been entertaining nightly (!) each summer at this KOA. He plays banjo, guitar, and fiddle, and tells jokes. She plays guitar and fiddle and groans or shakes her head at his jokes. They both sing. It's not polished, but it's pure fun and entertainment. As he (Richard) says, they do: country songs, bluegrass songs, gospel songs, Cajun songs, train songs, cowboy songs, dead cowboy songs, dying cowboy songs, Irish songs, sad songs, happy songs, ... . This picture is from the KOA website.
Mostly they do requests and it becomes a sing-along. He, Richard, knows an awful lot of songs and who recorded them and when. Just in case, he has a couple of boxes of 3x5 cards serve to jog their memories. One lady asked for All the Love of a Girl. He scratched his head, Oh, yeah, that was a Johnny Horton song, 1959 or 60. We haven't sung it since then. He dug through his files, pulled out a card with the lyrics and they did a great job on the song. Later I googled and found this YouTube video. Check it out.
The show takes place in a covered, outdoor Kamper Kitchen. The three nights we caught their show there were usually only 8-12 people in the audience. Must be a real labor of love, I doubt if they do it for the money. (Richard says he was turned on to the banjo by the movie, Deliverance (1972). Left home with a dollar in his pocket to make a living playing the banjo. Still has 65 cents change from that dollar.)
A sampling of jokes (I took notes on a napkin so I could share them with you):
Richard says he's the son of a preacher, but his father has never met his wife. His father told him, Don't you ever bring one of those loose, honky-tonk women home.
His fourth grade teacher said, You'll never amount to anything. You're a procrastinator. He said, Just you wait! That led to the usual string of procrastination groaners.
And, the obligatory banjo jokes:
What's the difference between a banjo and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle? You can tune a Harley.
What's the difference between a banjo player and a U.S. savings bond? The savings bond eventually matures and makes some money. (She, Diane, told this one.)
Terrorists took over the Great Falls courthouse and took a bunch of lawyers hostage. The terrorists said, If you don't meet our demands, we're going to release one every hour until you do.
One night there was an Irish gentleman in the audience. The man would go to his camper every once in a while and return with a drink, then when his glass was empty, he'd go get another one, several times, until he was getting pretty inebriated. He asked his wife: Do lemons have feet? What! she said. Do lemons have feet? Of course not, you crazy drunk, she said. Oh, he said. I think I just squeezed the canary into my whiskey.
The three nights we heard the Rounders, only one or two jokes or one-liners were repeated.
In Friday's newspaper we got lots of information on things to do. Primarily, it happened, serendipitously, not because of careful planning on our part, that this weekend was the annual Lewis and Clark Festival.
Friday we went to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center and the C. M. Russell Gallery. Saturday we went to nearby Fort Benton's annual Summer Celebration and Saturday night I went to a dramatization about whether Meriwether Lewis committed suicide (the conventional story at the time) or was murdered (as today's conspiracy theorists claim). Sunday was church and then I (with a group of 30) took a two-hour float trip on the Missouri with a guide who told us Lewis and Clark stories along the way. I'll blog these events separately. Be patient. Stay tuned.
Here's a picture of one of the falls that gave this town its name. There are hydroelectric dams all along the way now, so you don't get the full effect of what it was like 200 years ago. Still pretty impressive, though.
Cheers,
Cheers,
Susie and Rob
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